Eggnog Shots: The Hunger Games
by rainy-october-972
Summary: This is just a little mini-series of fluffy holiday-themed oneshots that I'm going to be doing (hopefully a new one every day) for the rest of December. Pairing recommendations absolutely accepted! My plan is to do a different pairing each day so even though it says it's Everlark there will be other couples added later on. So yeah, I hope you enjoy
1. Snow and Paint: Peeniss

I am sitting by the fire peeling chestnuts, letting the smoky warmth soak into my bones, a feeling much appreciated and needed after my long track in the frozen woods this morning, when Peeta comes in. He's covered from head to foot in large clumps of snow and his cheeks are red and chapped from the chilling winds, but he is beaming as he steps through the front door, hangs his coat up, and shakes clods of slush off his boots before removing them carefully. It's impossible not to feel my heart lift, seeing him so happy; he's practically bouncing as he makes his way over to me, a phenomenon as uncommon as snow in April and extremely amusing.

"So, what's up?" I ask him after he has given me a hello kiss on the cheek and collapsed on the sofa, still radiating happiness. "Something happen in town?"

"No, not really," he says, grinning. "Well, actually. I stopped by the Hob, and it's looking nice. Almost as dingy as the original." The true Hob has been gone for more than a year, and it's just now that the slew of people who made their living in there have gotten up the courage to begin building a new black market. Their pretense is an antique shop, which fools no one, but luckily none of the latest officials care much. Besides, most of the stuff being sold there is no longer illegal under the shaky new government system.

"That's nice," I reply. "Did you say hello to Greasy Sae and Priory for me?"

"Yep. I dropped by all of the old crew. They send their holiday best." I smile.

"Okay, so is that all then?"

"Whatever do you mean?"

I stop peeling nuts to give him a look. "You're obviously happy about something. So, tell. What is it?"

"Oh, I don't know," he says, meeting my stern expression with a grin. "It's winter. Don't you think it's beautiful?"

I ponder this for a moment. _Beautiful._ I've never really thought much of the word; it seems usually to be about people and the artificial things that make them desirable. But snow, warm fires, time with family. The so-called Christmas trees adorned with fancy baubles that go up every year around this time, although no one really knows what Christmas is. Cups of tea in the evening. Curling up together on the sofa, talking or just holding each other. "Yes, I guess it is beautiful." His smile at my words certainly is.

Peeta slides off the couch and down next to me, watching the motions of my knife. And I sense that he, like me, is remembering the first winter we spent together but not really, after we had won the Games and came home to fancy houses we didn't know what to do with and shortly after, a Quarter Quell that neither of us expected to come out of alive. Things were so different then. This house, for one. It felt like a prison rather than a home, a punishment for our deeds. And the two of us. Forced together once again and not really sure how we felt about anything. At least, I didn't. I guess now that Peeta did know, but didn't want to voice all of it for fear of me.

_Mutt._

No. I push that wreckage away from me and concentrate on the glowing, comfortable Peeta in front of me. It's winter. It's time to be happy about things like snow and each other and the home we've made out of so many terrible things. And of course, the six-month-old child upstairs asleep, blissfully unaware that the world is ever anything but good and beautiful. Peeta seems to read my mind or be following a similar train of thought, because at this moment he says, "Is she asleep, then?"

"Yes." The corner of my mouth quirks up a bit just thinking about her. Our daughter. "She went to sleep just fine. I think she likes the winter too."

"Well, she certainly likes the snow," says Peeta, bringing the images of her laughing in the Meadow and trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue to the forefront of my mind. "That was a good day."

"It was. We should take her tomorrow, too."

Peeta shakes his head. "No, not tomorrow. We've got dinner with the family tomorrow, remember?" By _family, _he means my mother and Haymitch and Buttercup, and possibly a few of my mother's friends from town if she can convince them to come. And Effie – to everyone's surprise, she agreed to the long journey out here, which I suppose makes sense since she pretty much invited herself. "Your mother will probably want you over there first thing to help with the cleaning and the cooking."

I sigh. "You're right. Ugh, I hate cooking with her. Can't you just bring a loaf of bread and call it fair?" I say, half-jokingly.

He laughs. "I wish. If only I could always save the day with bread."

"My prince with shining bread pans."

"That's me."

I scoot closer to Peeta, let myself curl up against his chest. He is warm and smells of bread as usual, with a hint of the cold fresh scent of snow mixed with the wool of his jacket. All of these things whisper _home_, and I don't shy away from the comfort his presence gives me as I would have years before now, on that first winter together.

We sit like this for a few minutes, watching the fire crackle and waver, and I resist the faint urge to get up and tend to it as is habitual for me. Then, quite suddenly, he releases me and straightens up. "Oh. I nearly forgot. Hold on a second."

I sit up as well, confused and curious, watching him as he quickly goes upstairs making hardly any noise on the soft white carpet. He only takes a minute and is soon back with a very large rectangular package wrapped in simple brown paper. It must be for me. Gift-giving is another tradition that has survived through the years without much reason, and one that I allow myself to enjoy. I'm still working on his gift, and hope he doesn't expect it right now.

He bounces back down beside me, having now migrated to the sofa, and hands it to me with a huge smile that would look ridiculous if it weren't on Peeta but because of this looks just right. "For you."

"Oh, you shouldn't have." I can't help smiling back at him. "You want me to open it right now?"

"Yep, right now. I think you'll like it," he says, leaning back to watch me. I carefully peel back the corners of the paper at the top, then proceed to remove the rest of the wrapping with equal caution. When the paper is cast aside, I am staring, puzzled, at a large white rectangle with a brown frame attached. "Um, thanks," I venture. "What is it?"

This only makes his grin grow larger. "Turn it around, Girl on Fire," he answers. I feel the strange leaping sensation in my stomach that I always do when he uses this nickname – shyness, I guess – and do as he says. I gasp involuntarily.

Peeta has made me a painting. This, of course, isn't all that surprising; he rarely does little else, on most days. However, it's the composition that makes my heart leap.

It is me, and our daughter. I am holding her between my knees and my stomach, sitting on a large rock that must be in the Meadow. We are surrounded by the silhouettes of trees and a few wildflowers, and we look to be alone yet completely at peace with the peace of the forest. But the real beauty, the thing that is most incredible, is that Peeta has captured the rarest of my expressions, something that he has only done a couple times before – he always complains about not getting it down accurately, and he tries to get me to recreate it but it is just never real enough. Except this one. This expression is the kindest of mine, the one that means I am completely and totally happy, or as happy as it is possible for me to be. In this moment, there is nothing but me and our daughter and it completely makes sense because this is the true feeling behind our little damaged but working family. Not the fear I felt when I held her in me, or the anger I had so many times at the Capitol for putting me in this situation no matter how much I love Peeta, or the emptiness that comes sometimes when I remember the dead and feel like I'll never be able to feel anything again. This is the love at the heart of everything, the emotion that keeps me going at the end of the day. And this is proof, in paint, that it exists.

I look at Peeta, at a loss for words. I look into his eyes and imagine him painting this. Sitting in his workroom, closing his eyes while gripping a paintbrush, straining to remember the precise moment and the exact look and feeling of everything. Kneeling down, face tight in concentration, dragging the brush against the canvas with slow, purposeful strokes. I see the paint flecks that have not fully faded from his clothes and hands, and I remember the quiet calmness he always has when he emerges from his rooms to eat or sleep or kiss me softly on the cheek. And in this moment, I love him more than I have ever loved him before, or anyone, except possibly my sister.

"Thank you," I get out. He sees what is going through me and he just holds me close, murmuring "You're welcome" in my ear as he runs his fingers through my hair.

"Really," I say, and smile. "It's perfect. I couldn't ask for a better present."

"I can hang it in the hall, if you'd like."

"That would be great."

"Okay."

We sit together for perhaps minutes and hours, not saying anything, just being in the moment. Then I rise and pull him up as well, saying "Come on. Let's get some sleep. Who knows how long she'll let us doze tonight."

He nods. "Maybe she'll feel generous tonight."

I laugh. "Have you met our daughter?"

He squeezes my hand. "Yeah, okay, let's go sleep. You've got to get up early tomorrow."

I groan, and he smiles again. I put out the fire, and then we head upstairs carefully, quietly, not wanting to disturb the winter peace of the large but cozy house.


	2. Safe: Gadge

"Madge." The urgent but gentle voice in my ear brings me softly back to consciousness. "Madge, wake up."

"What?" I roll over onto my other side, facing him, so that I can see what's wrong. He is watching me with that dark, serious look that still gives me butterflies. Although he seems to be about to chastise me for falling asleep – I can't quite remember our situation yet through my grogginess but I have a vague sense that we're not supposed to be here right now, wherever here is – it looks like he hasn't been totally awake; his dark brown hair is tousled and there is a slight shadow under his eyes.

"We only have an hour. Don't spend it sleeping."

My surroundings slowly come into focus – we're in the Hawthornes' living room, on the split-open leather couch – and I smile, remembering. It's the winter solstice, and I managed to sneak out and meet him here around two hours ago. Well, it wasn't really sneaking; my mother's headaches are getting worse, and my father is rarely ever home (when he is, he spends most of his time in his office anyway). But it still felt strange and good to be doing something without their knowledge, something I would never have had the courage or the reason to do before now. Such is my relationship with Gale; he feels dangerous, but safe at the same time, and I'm not sure if he is making me better or leading me down the wrong path but at the moment I don't care. Because he is sitting beside me and in this moment I feel as happy as I ever could in such a volatile time.

"Hey, I wasn't the only one to doze off." I nudge him softly, and he smiles a little.

"Yeah, well. Get up, you almost missed the sunset."

He's right; the room, with its lights turned off, has grown considerably darker than before I lost consciousness, threatening to engulf us in complete shadow. I sit up and go over to the metal-paned window, grasping Gale's hand and dragging him over as well. The sky is brilliantly colored, streaked with orange and yellow and a trace of violet, all of these seeming far too bright and cheerful for the somber winter's day and the ground and trees blanketed with snow. I squeeze Gale's hand and meet his eyes for a moment, then look away, still shy. He squeezes back and the pressure is more than of friendship. It hints at hope and possibly things to come.

"Don't you think it's pretty?"

"Yeah. I guess." He's not one for beauty, at least the natural kind. As he reminds me constantly, _you, Madge Undersee, are the only thing of beauty for hundreds of miles._ Not too much of a compliment, but I know what he means. And I guess that he is probably thinking of that beauty as he nods his assent.

He puts his arm around my shoulder, and I allow myself a moment to just feel safe, feel loved. I've never been one to fool myself with thoughts of marriage or even being fancied, but at least now it's different. Now I can partly that which I never dared to consider. As if sensing my thoughts, he stoops over to give me a kiss on the forehead, and I can feel myself blushing.

"So, Madge. Happy Christmas," he says.

"Christmas? I thought that was later?" I ask, my brow creasing. "Besides, no one even celebrates it anymore."

"True. Then happy Solstice, or winter, or whatever you want to call it. Do you feel what it's doing to us?"

"To us?"

"Yes, to us. To everyone. There's something about winter…I can't put my finger on it…" He is staring out the window distractedly. "It's like we're supposed to have joy, to hope. Even though winter is a time of death. It must be those old customs."

I nod, because I know what he means, at least a bit. "We should be mourning," I answer, "and I don't know, I still am, sort of." These kinds of talks often confuse me and I'm not sure what he means, but I'm getting better. Better at understanding Gale's mind and how he operates and how he wants people to think. "But I can't be sad, not entirely."

"Me, neither." He is silent for a moment, and I watch his face, mentally tracing all of the lines and dips and slight changes in skin coloration. I used to think I knew everything about Gale, just from watching him nearly every day at school – I can admit that to myself now, how I admired him for a distance pretty much constantly – but now that we're together, sort of, I have truly noticed most parts of him, the ones most people would just skim over. The way he frowns in concentration before speaking. The short hairs at the nape of his neck that always manage to avoid the shears, just as dark as the hair on the rest of his body. His eyes, grey and clouded but piercing at the same time, as if he is both looking through you and at you. He finishes his concentration and turns back to look at me. I make myself meet his eyes, not caring that much if he noticed me noticing because that's what I do and he has gotten used to that.

"Sometimes I think it would better to not be part of this, to…just be somewhere else and not have to worry about it anymore. And sometimes I feel like I want to be at the heart of it, out there fighting the Capitol and making them pay for all the hell they've put us through for so long." As he says this, his voice rises slightly, and I brace myself for the fire in his eyes; I don't tell him, but he begins to scare me again whenever he talks like this, about the Capitol and the rebellion and the Hunger Games. But his voice quickly falls again, and he regains his quiet composure, still looking at me. "It would be so easy to go, so easy, and I've half a mind to leave right now. But…" He trails off.

"But what?" I ask, feeling small below those grey eyes.

The corners of his mouth rise just slightly. "But I can't really do that, can I? Because of you. I can't leave you, Madge."

The blush creeps back up my face again, heating my cheeks, and I look away. But he gently presses my chin up, making me look back at him. "I mean that," he says, and I can tell from his tone that he's not lying. "I love you, Madge."

"I…I love you too," I say, and know that this too is the truth. He smiles wider, and bends down to give me a long and lingering kiss.

"So don't," I say, finding the bravery to speak again. "Don't leave. Stay here and get buried under the snow with me."

His eyes twinkle. "Is that a suggestion?" he says.

"No, it's an order," I reply, smiling at him teasingly.

"All right then," he says. "Let's go get coats on."

"What –" I start to say, confused, but he's already dashed from the room. A moment later he returns, two coats draped over his arm: one is his warm leather-and-wool hunting jacket, which I of course recognize instantly (having admittedly spend several fall evenings snuggled underneath it), and the other looks to belong to one of Gale's siblings, or possibly his mother, a nice one with only a few patches and fake bits of fur (or maybe they're real, I wouldn't know) around the hood. He chuckles at my astonishment. "Snow, you said, right? Let's get going. There's only so long before the world ends."

I can't help but giggle, and his face although still retaining the seriousness that makes him Gale has softened considerably as he helps me put the coat on. I think about protesting, but know that his family won't mind the borrowing of their coat; they've shown me nothing but kindness in the past months and seem to like me well enough. I zip up the front as he puts his hunting jacket on, and soon we are bundled up and heading outside.

The sun has nearly left the sky, and all the colors are gone except a lingering bit of scarlet almost touching the ground far away. He guides me to a patch of ground adjacent to a couple of scrawny pine trees, where the snow is just deep enough to reach my knees. "Come on," he says, and we both lie down, sinking into the soft opalescent surface. I can't see him – the snow gets in the way – but I feel his hand clutching mine and sense his breathing inches away. I imagine that I can hear his heartbeat as well, a muffled thumping almost lined up with mine but just a bit slower. And we stay there as that last bit of red drains from the sky, silent as thick wet snowflakes descent from the dark oblivion to cover us in their sparkling weight. For this moment, at least, I feel like the troubles of the rebellion and the oncoming war are miles away, unable to break through our protective barriers of snow, and we are safe here for an interminable time because we are holding on to each other. This, of course, isn't true, is very far from being true, but I make a mental promise to myself to never let this moment fade away even in the heat of violence because it's so very important for me to remember that I am not always so fragile.


	3. Home for Christmas: Odesta

She's about ten paces ahead of me in the water, but I'm just as fast. She's trying to push her speed up, I can tell by the movement of her upper legs, but she's getting tired and I know that I'm going to catcher. About ten seconds later, she seems to realize this as well, and – wanting, as usual, to end it on her terms – she drops down, plummeting into the water like a stone although it's only a few feet deep. And it works: I stop sloshing forward and come to a halt, waiting, amused, for her to resurface. Several seconds pass and there's a heartstopping moment of _is she going to try that again_, but it's quickly over as her head breaks the surface and I laugh in relief. "I win," I say.

"No way," Annie replies, tossing her head to get her long locks of hair back behind her. "You stopped running."

"Hey, so did you," I point out, but I can't hold back to the smile. "How about this: it's a tie. We both win." She only laughs at this, and my grin grows wider as I quickly move forward before she can bolt again, taking her in my arms. "I've missed you," I say in her ear, habitually stroking her hair.

"I missed you too, Finn." She smiles back, but a thought creases her brow and she looks deep into my eyes. Hers are so bright, and for once completely focused, that I feel my stomach drop like it used to for the first year or so that I knew her. She was different back then. But I refuse to believe that she's worse now, just like I know that _that_ Annie, the real Annie, is still somewhere buried inside her where I can only occasionally find her but there nonetheless, and staring out through those eyes in moments like this.

"When will you have to leave again?"

I stiffen. "I don't know." They said two months. That's it, just two months here at home with her. But I don't want to tell her, not now when we're just beginning to be okay again.

"Why do you have to keep going there, Finn? Why does the Capitol care so much about you?"

"You know why," I say. She shakes her head. Of course, she doesn't want to think about it. Neither do I. So, today I won't force her. It is the blessed winter, finally the time when I am at home at least for a while and it's not so hot outside. It's a time for celebration and watching ice in the ponds melt, not for this talk. "I'm not sure, Annie. They seem to think I'm some handsome charmer. What do you think?" I trace a line from the back of her neck to the top of her spine, and she giggles like a child.

"Of course."

"Good." I playfully tousle her hair, and she shrieks and frees herself from my arms. I let her, because I know I will have plenty more chances to hold her. Not enough – never enough – but an amount that somehow has to be enough to keep me from totally breaking in the many months away from her, my anchor in this huge and treacherous sea.

"Come on, Finnick." She is pulling at my hand. "I want to show you something?"

"Oh, really?" I let myself be dragged along, smiling a little at her eagerness about whatever it is. "What would that be?"

She puts a finger to my lips. "It's a surprise. You have to follow me."

And so I do. Annie takes me up the beach, through the marina, past the school where we used to go and towards Victor's Village. I assume that she's taking me to her house – well, more like our house; she is the only one I have left so I've been spending my time at home with her there because it isn't lonely and, to be honest, she needs it as much as I do – but she walks straight past and my curiosity deepens. Possibly she is taking me to the stream out back, but no, we go over the small bridge and out in what could possibly be termed "the woods", a few miles of sparse trees before the fence begins.

Finally I can't hold back my words. "Where are you taking me, Annie?" I've never been this far back before. Why would I? The only thing that interests me is the ocean.

But she just smiles at me and shakes her head. "You'll see." And so we walk on for a good ten minutes. The ground begins to slope downward, first slightly and then getting steeper with every foot. Finally, when we've walked what I estimate to be another mile and a half or so, Annie stops and turns around. She's smiling. "We're here."

And so we are. Directly in front of us is a small pond, frozen over with ice and framed by frosted grasses and ferns. And to the left, a large boulder that looks to be the perfect size for two people to sit next to each other and watch the landscape. I smile back at her and say "Excellent. Looks nice and cozy."

"Come on," she says, pulling me over to the rock. I am correct; we are just able to fit on top of it. She leans into me, and I hold her close once again. "I found it last week. I got lost while exploring and then I found it. I thought that you would like it."

"You thought right," I reply, and I can feel her giggle again, her body convulsing softly against mine.

We are silent for a moment, and then she asks me, "Hey Finn?"

"What?" I say.

"What's Christmas?"

I chuckle to myself. We've had this conversation before; twice, if I remember correctly. Still, I give as honest of an answer as I can. "I'm not sure. I think it was some kind of holiday, back in the days before the districts. Why?"

"It seems nice. Christmas," she says, gazing off in the distance. "The word feels nice. Like velvet."

I recall the soft, waterlike fabric they are so fond of in the Capitol. "Yeah, it does."

"Do you ever wish we had things like that?"

"Like what? Holidays? We do have holidays," I answer, but I know what she means. We have days off sometimes (or at least the people who still have the luxury of working and going to school do) when the weather's bad or there's extra help needed somewhere or there's some important televised event like the Games and the Victory Tours, but we don't really have all that much to celebrate. Which isn't to say we don't ever have fun – District Four, being better off than many districts, does have the ability to party – we just don't have specific traditional days for it.

"Yeah, but not ones that matter. I feel like Christmas mattered one time."

"You're right," I say, absentmindedly pulling her closer to me and once again running my fingers through her hair. "Maybe we do need something like that."

"Finn?" I love the way she says my name, my nickname, always with a question mark at the end because despite everything the Capitol has done to her Annie is still curious about everything, just in a different, more uncertain way.

"Yeah, Annie?"

"How about we make our own Christmas, then?"

"Sounds good." I grasp her hand. "How about it's today?"

She laughs again. "Okay. Today is Christmas. Happy Christmas, Finnick."

"Happy Christmas."

"So what do we do?" she asks.

"Whatever we want. We could go fishing. We could dance and eat things. Or…we could just sit here, for as long as we want, and watch the view."

Her voice gets quiet, shy Annie coming out for a while. "How about we do all of those things?"

"And more," I promise. "Our Christmas will be the best ever!" She grins at me, and I grin back. "Let's get started. What first?"

"Let's just sit here for a while."

"Okay."

And so we do, and it is the most peaceful feeling I have experienced in months, because although I have been with so many different people like this, pressed close to them in intimate ways, this at least is natural, and I don't despise my partner. The opposite, in fact; I love her. When I tell her so, she giggles again, and the sound is music to my tired ears.


End file.
